Why aren’t you Tipsy Yet?

Are you feeling like you not in the right mix of people?
As we grow and mature into the person we want to be with career, responsibilities, and bills it may seem like we grow more and more apart from our familiar friends and social groups. This is a case of natural progression that can at times create a sense of alienation. We stop and look at our lives and see we have grown up from it. We have grown apart from it.

A few people have brought up to me that they too have stopped and looked at their lives and found that they just don’t fit in the mix anymore. Some concerns raised were “my old friends have no drive or ambitions they are happy doing the same things they did in high school, I am not”; “I have begun my life and my career my friends complain that I am always M.I.A. they don’t understand I have things to do”; “Most if my girlfriends have kids and all they want to do is stay in or sleep on the weekends the times we use to hang out, now I’m stuck at home cuz they don’t want to go out”. These are the concerns of many 20something year olds.

Our twenties are a time of great transition. It is a time when great changes and decisions have to be made solely by ourselves. Decisions that determine the direction of our lives. One of those involves the people we surround ourselves with.

Most mother hang with mothers, most sports fans hang with sports fans. If you are a young professional single moving up in their career or graduate studies and finding that your surroundings are a little empty or non progressive, consider a change of scene. Instead of despairing that you and your old friends are no longer on the same side of the tracks think about embracing new ones.

How do you do this when your always busy anyway? Well for one stop living in the past. Sit down with a tall glass of wine and your contact list. Take a couple of sips and delete away. Make it a ceremonial goodbye. Severing ties isn’t easy but when those ties are holding you down you need to do what you have to do, to break free. This includes cellphone contacts and Facebook contacts.

When you start to think “I might need so and so’s number in the future” think to yourself when last did they call me or inspire me forward? Then take and another sip and hit delete. So you will begin to see how this ceremonial sipping and deleting will make the process less difficult and more freeing.

Next, get the fuck up and starting mingling. Mingle with coworkers and colleagues. As a twenty something if you find co-workers or too much older than you to “hang” with don’t be afraid to make mentors of them. Find the right mix of peers by going to after work happy hours, join a professional meet up group, and attend networking events in your field. These types of things will keep your social life up as well as help open up channels to get feedback and ideas that will help you down your chosen life’s journey. Best of all you can always have a drink in hand to do a number of services, from easing tension to giving you a excuse why you can’t remember something that didn’t go your way.

So toast up, drink up and get mingling with your in crowd. There will be apprehensions like Im scared to meet new people.
That’s what the drink in hand is for. Know your limits and stick to something light enough to relax you but not push you overboard.